Court papers reveal odd back story in 2011 Maitland shooting death

On a muggy August morning in 2011, Bruce Fuller opened the door to his upscale Maitland home and motioned police to where Furrukh Shan Alam was lying on his back, dead with a bullet in his chest.

At the time, detectives had little evidence to contradict Fuller's claim that he fired in self-defense. So they let him go, and for more than a year he was free — but not from suspicion.

In February, an Orange-Osceola grand jury indicted the 63-year-old real-estate agent on charges of first-degree murder, and recently released court documents reveal a convoluted tale of a friendship gone awry and a staged crime scene.

"I got attacked by a guy with a gun," Fuller told Maitland dispatchers about 8:37 a.m., according to a transcript of the 911 call.

The guy was 37-year-old Alam, a California businessman Fuller had met more than a decade before who had traveled to Florida to close deals on a business venture.

Now Fuller is out on bond, and the California man's family is preparing to face him at trial.

"In all of this, the person who lost the most is my son," said Alam's widow, Farzana Rashid, of her 6-year-old, Rayhan. "When he grows up and asks questions, I want to have the answers. I want to be able to explain to him why he had to grow up without a father."

Detective deduction

Though they have never been able to establish a motive in the case, in their investigative summary to prosecutors, detectives lay out this theory:

Alam was preparing to leave the home when Fuller, angered by some disagreement, went to his office, loaded a stolen Glock 9 mm pistol and fatally shot the younger man at close range. He then delayed calling 911.

According to documents filed the case, here's what Fuller says happened:

Alam began to behave bizarrely and picked up the gun. Fearing for his life, Fuller wrestled for it, and it went off. He "instantly" called for help.

"The look on his face — it was like something you see in a movie where somebody, uh, you know they're — they're going to get vicious," Fuller said during an interrogation detectives described as rambling and incomprehensible.

According to investigators,Fuller's account does not match what they found at the crime scene: The bed was made. The ironing board with an iron atop was standing near Alam's body — even though Fuller had described a struggle. Blood was scattered throughout the house, investigative documents allege. They found drugs, too: marijuana and the sedative Ambien.

According to the Orange-Osceola Medical Examiner's Office, Alam's autopsy results showed he was killed by a single gunshot wound to the chest, and there was cocaine in his system at the time of his death. Friends interviewed by detectives said he was a recreational user.

After more than a year of collecting forensic evidence, sifting through phone records, interviewing dozens of people and hearing Fuller change his story several times, detectives filed charges.

In another strange twist, Fuller also faces sexual-battery charges of assaulting a woman at his home the night before the murder. Few details are available in that case, except that a woman was with Fuller and Alam drinking and doing drugs that night. She told police later that she had left the home a few hours before Alam was shot.

Men of repute: Social butterflies

Fuller was working as a travel agent and met Alam when he helped the Los Angeles man plan a cruise to Mexico in 2001. They stayed in touch through the years, authorities said, but their families knew little about their relationship.

Alam bought and sold motor vehicles in Anaheim, where family members said he was well-liked for his generous and jovial personality in his local Pakistani Muslim community. Hundreds turned out to the man's funeral, his father, Mahfooz Alam, said.

He wed Rashid in 2005 in an arranged marriage and lived with his entire family in a sprawling 3,000-square-foot Orange County, Calif., home.

"We still keep the light on in his bedroom as if there is hope he will return to us," his father said.

Fuller is a well-connected member of the business community in Central Florida and a fixture of Park Avenue's social scene. But he had a troubled past.

The retired Army helicopter pilot did well in Central Florida selling real estate for C. Brenner Realty and arranging travel for Fantasy Cruises & Tours near downtown Orlando for the past 30 years.

But along with two failed marriages — one of which ended with his pointing a rifle at his wife and brother-in-law, according to a 1976 arrest report included in the court documents for this case — he has been thrown out of businesses for disorderly conduct and has had people file restraining orders against him for violence a few times.

Fuller's friends, including a woman he called after the shooting, would not comment for this story but visited him while he was in the Orange County Jail.

His attorney, Thomas Sommerville, contends his client has been consistent in his account to detectives.

When reached by the Orlando Sentinel, Fuller would not discuss the shooting but said: "It certainly wasn't intentional." He would not provide more details.